Officials confirm nearly 50,000 birds have died after an outbreak of High Pathogenic Avian Influenza in South Dakota, sending the total number of bird deaths this year to more than 50.5 million. This breaks the record set in 2015.
The outbreak happened at a commercial turkey facility in the northern part of the state. According to USDA, 48,000 birds were lost. This comes after nearly 10,000 birds were lost after an outbreak in a backyard chicken flock in Missouri earlier this week. Missouri saw ten cases of HPAI earlier in the year, impacting six commercial flocks and four backyard flocks.
Those cases wiped out more than 400,000 birds. This is now the deadliest HPAI outbreak in U.S. history according to USDA.
